This invention relates in general to a driving mechanism for the reciprocating carriage of a meat slicing machine, and more particularly to an improved drive mechanism capable of decreasing the deceleration and acceleration forces applied to the carriage at the ends of the slicing and return strokes of the carriage to thereby reduce the speed and inertia forces occurring during the driving of the carriage.
Heretofore, it has been well known to provide a drive mechanism for the carriage of a meat slicing machine on which the meat product to be sliced is reciprocably driven toward and away from a power driven meat slicing knife in a meat slicing machine. Such a machine typically includes a rotary driven circular meat slicing knife with the meat supporting carriage movable along a straight horizontal line toward and away from the knife through slicing and return strokes or cycles. It has also been known that the drive mechanism may be constructed by having an endless flexible belt trained over longitudinally spaced apart pulleys to define upper and lower horizontally extending belt runs or reaches between the pulleys and extending generally parallel to the direction of movement of the carriage. Such a belt then has mounted thereon a drive lug which follows the path of the belt over the horizontal runs and the circumferences of the pulleys and which drive lug engages in slidable fashion a drive slot formed in a driven bar connected to the carriage such that the slot extends generally perpendicular to the direction of carriage movement. One of the pulleys is power driven which then transmits the power to the endless belt. Such a drive for the pulleys may consist of a motor and a reduction gear assembly. For compactness and economic reasons, the pulleys have a small diameter, thereby requiring the pulleys to traverse a large number of revolutions for one complete revolution of the endless belt. Since the drive lug follows the endless belt, it is subjected, as is the carriage and driven bar extending therefrom, to high deceleration and acceleration forces when the drive lug traverses the pulleys. These deceleration and acceleration forces or speed variations cause undesirable inertia forces to be transmitted to the moving parts of the machine which have an adverse affect on the life of the machine. In order to avoid these undesirable inertia forces, it has been heretofore necessary to employ more complex and therefore more expensive drive mechanisms or to use this type of drive mechanism with oversized pulleys which require a great deal of space and are otherwise more satisfactory for driving the endless belt.